“No daughter of mine disrespects her daddy!”
“If he’d acted like a real father, I might’ve given him some respect!” Disgusted, I walk out of the apartment and stand leaning against the door. My cheek aches, and there’s probably going to be a bruise. Tears bead in my eyes, but I blink them away. What will they accomplish? I’ll cry when tears can put food in my belly and take me away from this…hell.
Resentment is a tight ball that chokes me. I kick the dilapidated door with all my strength before spinning around and leaving, going somewhere that doesn’t have this miasma of misery.
Mom should have never let a man as selfish and undeserving as Beau Huss ruin the rest of her life. She shouldn’t make her child suffer because she can’t pull herself together enough to be a mother.
If I were her, I would’ve moved on a long time back. Just left, so he’d know how little he meant to me, how little I needed him to live a happy, fulfilling life. I would’ve never wasted tears on him.
“You’ve got no pride! No self-respect!” I yell in the apartment’s direction. My stomach knots with hunger, but there’s no food at home. Just a woman who’s coming apart at the seams and doesn’t care that she has a daughter who needs her.
I will never let any man have this much power over me. Never.
Chapter Three
Ava
Three days.
Sometimes three days can pass you right by, quick as a bullet. And sometimes that much time feels like an eternity. You’d think that when time is flying, you’d remember less. After all, everything’s going so fast, and surely your senses can’t absorb it all, your brain can’t process the whole skein.
But it’s the opposite. I remember every second of the happy days I had with Lucas… The three sweet, heartbreaking days at the bed and breakfast that ended far too soon.
The way he made my body sing.
The way he held me in his arms.
The way he made me feel like I was something special, precious to him.
Time’s been crawling since Lucas’s final visit. The last three days might as well have been a decade. But I remember very little of what happened after he came back with the barren terra-cotta pot.
I’m in love with you.
My heartbeat stutters at the memory. The five words I would’ve given anything to hear from his lips. He said them when he came by that last time. But I didn’t want to hear them that way—a gambit to get me to capitulate, to look away from all the things he’s done. A lot like how my dad used to bring gifts to make my mother forget all the ways he treated her badly. If she’d been thinking more clearly, maybe she would’ve seen the signs faster.
Still, my heart is foolish and impetuous, easily impressed.
I’m in love with you.
How I wanted to give in, wrap my arms around him and tell him I loved him too. I’m so much like my mother it’s scary. So I tossed out the only response I could—“You’re toxic”—and shut the door in his face. I couldn’t trust myself not to be impulsive.
Was I too harsh? I only wanted to make a point, make him go away so I could move on—again. But the utter devastation in his gaze still haunts me. It’s as though I’m the villain, not him.
And I despise myself for feeling this way.
Forget him. He only wanted to use you to get that ridiculous painting.
Why didn’t he just tell me honestly from the beginning? Then things could’ve been different. Instead he fed me lines about how he wanted to keep me a secret, hidden away from everyone because he was afraid to lose me, that others might covet what he had. What he meant was people might covet the multimillion-dollar painting he would get if we were together.
What humiliates me the most about our reunion is that I opened up to him. I told him things I would’ve never said because I believed he was making himself vulnerable to me. How stupid. Men don’t work that way.
I won’t let the past hold me down. What I’ve learned from the bitter disappointments in my life is that the only way to heal is to move on.
I’ll be damned if I end up like my mother.
Which is why I find myself in LAX waiting to board a late-night flight back home. Maybe I’ll get an offer from the medical center. The final round of interviews with Robbie Choi, my would-be boss, is done. The third son of Korean immigrants from Busan, the man’s super nice. Although he’s only in his forties, he’s gone prematurely gray and his ash-white mane is quite shocking on a face that looks so young.
You have to tell me everything! Bennie messages me on Facebook.